Farmers protest non-payment of dues

Say sit-in will give way to hunger strike if payments not cleared.

FAISALABAD: Scores of sugarcane farmers staged a demonstration on Saturday to protest non-payment of dues by a mill.

The sit-in protest continued for several hours. Farmers chanted slogans against the Hussain Sugar Mills and demanded the district government to push the mill administration to clear their dues.

Zafar Iqbal Khokhar, who was leading the protesters, told the media that the mill owed up to Rs970 million for sugarcane procured from the protesting farmers. He said with the payments for the sugarcane crop still pending clearance, farmers were unable to purchase seeds, fertilisers and pesticides for the upcoming crop season.

He said they had decided to take to the streets after several requests for clearance of dues were turned down by the mills’ administration. “If the administration does not pay heed to the demonstration, we would proceed to hunger strike,” he said. “A camp will be set up in front of the mills premises until the payments are cleared,” he said.

Abdul Ghafoor, spokesperson for the Hussain Sugar Mills, said a budget deficit was preventing the administration from clearing the dues of all farmers. “At the current price for sugar, our revenue from the sales does not let us pay the farmers in time,” he said.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 22^nd, 2015.